


Ribcage

by Imagining_in_the_Margins



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Dark Spencer Reid, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Love Confessions, Revenge, Sexual Violence, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:15:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24531409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagining_in_the_Margins/pseuds/Imagining_in_the_Margins
Summary: Spencer realizes Reader is the one, but it might be too late. He has to find her.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 134





	Ribcage

“ _I love you, Spencer._ ”

Those were the words that set these events into motion. They were simple words said confidently at 2:37PM on a Wednesday afternoon.

This was not a phrase whispered feverishly or recklessly between clandestine lovers in the night. It was purposeful and altogether transparent.

(Y/n) just loved me and wanted me to know.

I hadn’t heard those words in so long. My mind refused to return to the previous time over 7 years ago at this point. I know the exact number of days, but decided it wasn’t worth torturing myself any longer.

Yet I still feel compelled to run away— to flee to the safety of the certainty of the past. A part of me felt like I was cheapening what had already existed by allowing myself to love anew.

But that’s stupid, right? Because when a dedicated, tooth-achingly sweet, beautiful woman tells you that she loves you with all of her heart, the last thing she should do is frown.

Which is exactly what happened. She tried to hide it, obviously disappointed by my lack of response to her words. The fear and pain that formed in the split seconds of my expression that I couldn’t control. Of course she saw them.

“ _It’s okay not to have everything figured out yet. Whenever you do, I’ll be here. But I am not going to deny you the knowledge and certainty of how I feel any longer._ ” She paused, assessing the way the panic began to recede.

“ _I love you._ ”

She said them again, testing the way they felt on her lips and the way they hit my ears. She smiled this time, but only the kind of smile that heals your own breaking heart.

I was in love with her, too. I just didn’t know it yet.

I didn’t know I was in love with her until Sunday morning at 9:13AM, when I made two cups of coffee by accident for a girl that wasn’t there.

Staring at the taupe liquid, I was overwhelmed by the weight of the world crashing over my body.

I loved her. I loved her with everything that I had left.

Suddenly I understood why she said those words to me so seemingly random. It made sense that sitting on a park bench and reading the newspaper was enough for her to realize that this was all she ever wanted.

Because I wanted to turn around and hand her this cup of coffee. To watch her muscles relax and the sleep wash away from her face as she sunk into the chair beside me.

I wanted to tell her I loved her. I _needed_ to tell her that I love her.

There was no hesitance in the way I practically ran to my car and drove the 20 minutes to her apartment. But after I pulled my copy of her key from my chain, I stopped.

It was not doubt in my emotions that made me pause when I turned the key in the lock.

No, it was the fact that the door was already unlocked. 

(Y/n) was not the kind of person to forget to lock her doors. She made a habit out of it, acutely aware of the risks involved with loving someone like myself.

So why was her door unlocked?

I tried to convince myself that she might have just forgotten. Maybe she had just gotten home and her hands were full, so she didn’t lock it behind her.

As I opened the door, the worst possible conclusions raced through my mind. But none of them were as painful as what I saw as the door inched away from me.

The metallic stench of stale blood filled my lungs first, before I was even able to see the dark red and brown shoe print stains trailing across the hardwood. They were not her prints; they were much too large.

It felt like the world had slowed to a stop and any movement I made was much too fast, like it would shatter reality. I wanted to move faster, but I couldn’t.

My body shook so hard my vision refused to catch up. Still, I moved forward. I moved toward the large pool that had settled long before I got there.

I saw her shoes first, followed by the light blue denim of her jeans. My heart beat so hard that my ribs ached from the assault. At some point my gun had been pulled, but I wasn’t doing a sweep of the room like I should have.

Why would I? The prints clearly led out the door, wiping what was left of the maroon liquid on the welcome mat we had picked out together after she trailed mud through her home when our picnic was rained out.

As I approached her blouse came into view, a white flowing shirt that she would also joke made her look like an angel.

You wouldn’t know why now, as it was drenched so deeply it appeared almost black.

Her face was covered.

This was the moment I began to understand the appeal of denial.

In front of me was a woman of her general height and weight, dressed in her clothes in her home. But something inside of me burned with the understanding that it wasn’t her.

I didn’t want it to be her.

Does that make me a bad person? To beg that someone else’s love is laying here? To have died alone, scared, in someone else’s home and clothes?

I didn’t care.

With shaking hands and tears burning at my eyes, I reached down to pull the black sheet from her head.

What I saw was equal parts horrifying and relieving. I fell to my knees, slipping in the pool of blood while my head fell backwards, praising a God I’d never particularly believed in.

It wasn’t her.

Now able to breathe, although only halfway, I was able to pull out my phone, dialing 911 and rambling information laid out before me.

“Hello, my name is Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. I’ve found a dead body located at 373 Mine Road, apartment 205. Victim is female, approximately 28 years old. She’s been dead for approximately…”

This was when my breath truly ceased, because the reality was setting in. Rigor mortis had reached its peak.

“F-for about twelve hours.”

It had been twelve hours since (y/n) was last here. What have I been doing? Could I really not have called? Shouldn’t I have known? What if this was my fault, if this could have been avoided?

If I had told her I loved her, would she even had been here last night? If I wasn’t so _fucking_ stupid, would she have been in my bed last night rather than at the hands of a murderer?

The operator told me they were dispatching police to my location and to stay on the line, but they sounded worlds away.

I didn’t care about the girl in front of me, and I know that’s a terrible thing to say. The only useful thing I could get from this right now is that she wasn’t (y/n).

When I tried to stand I nearly slipped in the blood, my head spinning from the shock. It should pass in a few moments, but I don’t have that kind of time.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. Finally able to take in my surroundings, I noticed the complete lack of evidence of a struggle. She had gone with him willingly, probably because of the dead girl beside me.

She must have been so scared.

“Fuck!” I yelled, unable to control the emotions overloading each of my senses. Don’t ask me why I knocked the things off her counter, contaminating the crime scene and her home. I don’t have a justification for it.

Pulling out my phone, I dialed the only number I could think to call at the moment.

“Hey Spence!” JJ’s cheery voice didn’t even touch the fire burning in my mind. I wiped a hand over my face, trying to figure out what words I’m supposed to say.

“(Y/n) is gone.”

Suddenly, she was quiet. I think she was mostly confused, but she could tell from the crackling in my voice that something was wrong.

“What do you mean she-“

“She’s fucking gone, JJ. Someone _took_ her. Th-they _took_ her, and they **killed** some girl and left her here.” The words were flowing out of me, and I felt like I could scream.

“Spence, where are you?” She was trying to be supportive and calm, but it was clear that she was also terrified.

“I’m at her place.”

“Stay there. I’ll call th-”

“I can’t stay here, JJ. I can’t do it. I have to leave. I-I can’t be here.”

There was a long pause, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the dead girl in front of me. The longer she took to answer, the longer I would be here, staring into the face of what would happen to (y/n).

“We’ll meet you at the office. Okay?”

“Okay.” I didn’t wait for a response, unable to stand being in this room for another second.

Yet still as I left the apartment, I felt the urge to lock the door behind me.

The ride to Quantico was the longest commute I’d ever made, despite being the exact same amount of time as it always was. My veins were flooded, my hands shaking from the adrenaline trying to combat reality.

One of the downsides of having an eidetic memory is that I don’t necessarily get to decide what my brain wants to remember. In fact, it’s the things I wish I could forget the most that are burned into the deepest recesses of my mind.

When I walked into the relatively empty building, it was the first time I remembered that I was half soaked in blood. Luckily I had a change of clothes always ready at the office, although it really seemed like such a low priority at this point.

Still, I changed, partly because I needed to cling to any sense of normalcy. I could feel my psyche trying to reject the situation I was in. Some deep part of me screamed at me to just give it up.

I’ve been here before.

That was the last thought I had before the bile that had been stinging my throat finally came up. I’m not sure how long I dry heaved in the bathroom, images of that poor dead girl mixing with the face I longed to see.

God, it’s so much worse when I know her face.

By the time I left the bathroom, half the team had already assembled here. Clearly, they were scared to leave me alone. It’s understandable.

JJ didn’t rush to hug me, which was the first sign I got that something had happened. The second was the terrified, wide eyes of Penelope Garcia.

“Spence…”

Oh no.

“What?” I asked, walking into the meeting room and taking a seat. I couldn’t waste time with people pitying me right now. I had to find her. They were staring at me like it was all but confirmed that she was dead. Like I had gotten the identification of the body wrong.

But I hadn’t. Right? No. Of course I hadn’t. I know what she looks like.

I know my brain can be faulty; I know that I wanted it to not be her so badly that some part of me might be able to convince myself it wasn’t. But it wasn’t her. I am positive.

“We… got a video,” JJ started, her hand shaking as it held the remote.

_No._

“It’s addressed to you.”

Authoritative as one can be with a broken voice, I immediately ordered, “Play it.”

Any objections died in that moment with the dark, serious stare I gave to the one with the remote. She hit the button silently, the lights turned off to match the distorted, dark images of the video.

But there was no picture of her. It was just a cement wall with absolutely no identifier. God, I just wanted to fucking see her. Even if it was like this. Please, just show me her face.

That was when it started.

 _The screaming_.

The shrill, piercing sounds of the woman I love filled the room. I didn’t need to see her to know it was her. I had never heard these sounds before, but I knew in my heart that it was her.

Sure enough, the chaotic sounds of screaming and general unrest stopped, replaced with the unmistakeable sound of a makeshift whip.

With each lashing sound, I flinched, my toes curling from the distinct, vivid memory of my own beating. I would take that pain a million times over if it meant that I didn’t have to hear her screaming like this.

I couldn’t tell if my heart was beating too fast or not at all anymore, the palpitations more often than not. The eyes in the room were on me, but mine were fixed on the screen.

“ _Spencer!_ ” The most familiar voice yelled, desperate and raw. My eyes finally clenched shut, and I wondered at what point I had started to weep.

“ _Spencer, please! Spencer, help me!_ ”

Even having known that I had already lost all the contents of my stomach, I felt the undeniable urge to vomit. I couldn’t fucking breathe.

“ _Please, Spencer! Spencer!_ ”

My fists clenched the edge of the table so hard I honestly thought they might splinter the wood. I tried to breathe, but the air felt like water in my lungs.

But somehow I opened my eyes, watching the cement wall once more.

“ _Spencer, please… Please, help me… It hurts, Spencer… Please._ ”

If her screaming were terrible to hear, this was even worse. This was the sounds of her, broken by something I couldn’t even see.

The lashings had stopped, but I heard a commotion on the other side of the camera. Her screaming had devolved back into nonsense, and in a horribly selfish way, I was grateful to not have to hear her calling my name.

That was until I heard the undeniably cruel sounds of a man. I couldn’t see, but I didn’t need to. I knew what was happening. Any yelling after that point was stifled, likely by a hand or gag.

I don’t know how much longer the video lasted. The horrified looks around the room were nothing compared to the images in my mind.

I could feel the bloodlust I thought I had quelled quickly rising. The gun on my hip suddenly feeling much heavier, begging me to use it to do something to stop this dreadful noise.

But this was a recording. It had already happened. She had cried out to me and I hadn’t been there. I didn’t save her.

Finally, there was motion on the screen. At this point, I was surprised I could still see at all. My breathing was unsteady as I hyperventilated in hard, heavy bursts.

Slowly, a gloved hand appeared on the screen. A shadow was visible as the hand dragged across the wall, drawing a large heart with what I can only assume was her blood.

She wasn’t screaming anymore.

It stayed on that image until the feed was cut.

“Spence,” someone started, but I couldn’t hear them. All I could hear was the sounds of her screaming for me on repeat.

I couldn’t be in this fucking room anymore. So I stood up, leaving the room and immediately returning to the bathroom, continuing where I left off.

‘ _Spencer!_ ’

I swung at the wall before I even realized what I was doing, my hand immediately aching from the brick. The pain felt like nothing.

When I returned to the room, my hand already discoloring from the shattered knuckles, I didn’t let them address me.

“Play it again.”

“We don’t need to do this,” someone objected, but I cut them off.

“I said **play it again.** ”

It was on the third playthrough that the rest of the team appeared. So now instead of a couple terrified eyes, there were several. But I was just trying to hear anything in the background.

I wanted to hear anything beyond the dreadful sounds of torture. I needed to learn literally anything; to know anything more.

The team was outside now, choosing not to listen to this again. I can’t blame them. Then again, it wasn’t their name she was screaming.

It’s not clear when my fury morphed into numbness, but it did. The sounds flowed through my ears, reinforcing the strong hold they had on my brain, but my fuel had run out.

I had reached my breaking point, I had broken, and I continued.

Rossi was the next person to enter the room, walking in front of the TV and shutting the computer, cutting the feed from the screen. I couldn’t yell - my throat shredded from the bile and rage.

“You have to stop. This isn’t productive.”

He was right. He was right, but I didn’t care. I was punishing myself because I needed to. Because feeling this rage right now was better than accepting the reality that she could be dead already.

I needed to find her.

“I can find her,” I whispered, “this won’t be like last time. It can’t. I-I can’t, Rossi. I have to find her.”

Tears streamed down my face, and I desperately wiped them away, like it would somehow stop the pain from hurting so badly.

“She cried for me to help her, Dave. She—She…”

A solemn nod told me that he understood the pain but didn’t know how else to help.

“Stop.” He ordered with a hand on my shoulder, “We _will_ find her.”

I’m glad he believed in me. Because right now, I really didn’t.

— _The Following Morning_ —

It had been over 24 hours since (y/n) was taken.

It had been over a day and we were no closer to finding her.

The girl who was killed had been abducted just a few days earlier, and it appeared so far that her only relevance was her striking resemblance to (y/n). The video led us down a wild goose chase that would take days to resolve.

My hand ached with the bruises blooming over my knuckles, and every now and then I felt the strong urge to hit them again.

Anything to stop the screaming.

I glanced down at my phone, an image of her staring back at me, a bright smile across her face. She was so breathtakingly beautiful it fucking _hurt_.

Staring at it for a moment longer, I tried not to picture the way it must look contorted in pain. I wanted to see her free, smiling, and alive.

But something stopped me - an incoming call from an unknown number.

The rest of the team was not in the room, having given me a brief moment to myself to try and calm down. They needed to get to sleep soon, I knew, but I couldn’t sleep until I found her.

Dead or alive, I had to find her before I closed my eyes.

The unknown taunted me like a forbidden fruit. And much like Eve, I had grown weary of the arbitrary limitations standing in my way. I grabbed my phone, gripping it with enough force to illicit the pain response I needed to think clearly at this point.

I answered, but I did not speak.

“Dr. Reid.”

The bastard was using a voice modulator. My heightened breath alerted him to my presence, but I still did not speak.

“I hope you enjoyed my earlier message. I have another surprise for you, whenever you are ready.”

I rubbed my face with my hand, trying to hide my reactions from the room around me.

“Where are you?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“I’ll send you the coordinates. Please, come at your leisure,” the man spoke casually. “The longer you take, the more time I get to spend with her.”

There was a sadistic laugh echoing through my ear, and I clenched tighter on the phone. Somewhere in the background, I heard a quiet, distorted sobbing that pierced my soul.

At least I know she’s alive.

“Oh, I’ve got to go. She’s calling for me again.”

Before he could hang up, though, I managed to get out a few last words.

“I’m going to kill you,” I muttered, my voice quiet but sure. “I’m _going to **fucking kill you**_.”

I know that motherfucker heard me, but the dial tone was the only response I received until my phone had dinged with a message displaying a position on a map.

Slipping out of the office before anyone else could see, I made a direct line to a bulletproof vehicle, pulling out of the parking garage with the sirens blasting.

I was going to find her. I was going to find her no matter what.

The coordinates weren’t far, somewhere in a deep, secluded woods. I could only take the car so far, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t need it any longer. Because as I approached the house, my gun was already drawn.

Nothing would stop me from finding her. And once I had found her, I would find a way to forget the sounds of her screaming. Even if it meant replacing them with his.

The building was a halfway broken-down home. The front door was ajar when I arrived, inviting me into the space with ease.

Still, I entered with caution, immediately noticing the distinct lack of habitation. It didn’t even have a basement - and certainly no cement walls. He had sent me here, but this isn’t where she was.

A storm brewed inside me as I realized that he had most likely led me into a trap. But if that meant I would be transported closer to her, it was a risk I was all too willing to take. I knew this was a possibility.

So when a branch behind me snapped, I spun around, but I didn’t shoot. It didn’t matter anyway. Because as soon I noticed a presence, it was gone. A sharp prick in my neck followed by the woozy instability I had felt before.

Then there was nothing.

— _Some Hours Later_ —

I had a dream that I was with her.

She was curled up on the couch beside me, her head in my lap as my fingers laced through her hair. She was warm and soft, as she always was.

Her eyes gleamed like the brightest stars as she looked up at me, a smile on her face as she spoke.

‘ _I love you, Spencer_.’

The words felt heavy in my chest as I tried to say them back. But my voice wouldn’t come out.

The longer we sat with me choking on the words I needed to say, the colder she got. Soon, her eyes were not glowing with happiness, but clouded with fear. The softness of her became slick as wounds appeared on her skin.

‘ _Please, help me… It hurts, Spencer… Please,_ ’ she begged as the life drained from her eyes. I stared at the blood on my hands, trying to figure out where it was coming from. But I couldn’t, and even if I could, it didn’t matter.

She was already dead.

I woke with a jump. Gasping for air, I tried to wipe away the sweat that had formed on my brow but found that my hands were bound together in front of me. The harsh cold against the soles of my feet told me he had taken off my shoes.

A computer was propped up in front of me, open to a paused video with the similar cement wall still image.

Two questions burning through my mind as I took in the surroundings were: Why did he know the details of my torture by Tobias Hankel, and why did he want to relive them now?

The better question, though, the one I truly wanted answered, was why he was doing this _to her_.

“Good morning, Dr. Reid.”

I guess I was about to get my answer. I turned to the man sitting to my right, holding onto a remote to presumably control the computer.

“Fuck you,” I replied, not even bothering to struggle yet. Truthfully, I had planned for this exact situation. Only problem was that it would only work if he had done what I expected him to.

“That’s not a very warm greeting. Especially not for someone who promised you a surprise.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” I immediately snapped back.

“Nothing?” He taunted, “Not even your little girlfriend?”

My eyes narrowed into a glare that was cold enough to freeze the flames of Tartarus, instilled with all the suffering that brought me to this point.

“Don’t have to be a profiler to know what that look means.” He sighed, “I take it… you want more than just her from me.”

He’s right. I want his life. And if this worked out at all as I planned, I was going to have it.

“Where is she.” It wasn’t a question; it was a demand.

“Oh, well, she’s on the video, of course.”

He didn’t hesitate to start the video. At first I heard nothing. There were no screams. Just an eerie silence as the camera swiveled around and panned out to show the woman I loved, sitting silently in a chair with her wrists and ankles bound.

There was no struggle left in her. She could barely hold her own head up. But she looked alive, and that was all that mattered to me right now.

I choked on a sob as I saw the way she struggled to look up, a small sliver of sunlight over her face.

It was dark out now. This wasn’t happening live.

This is when I began to struggle to free myself from my shackles. Because there are only two reasons he would show me her prerecorded.

Either she was alive, and he was planning on killing her in front of me, or she was already dead. Either way, I was going to need my hands.

I shifted my shirt, trying to grab the small spare key to my cuffs that I had taped inside my shirt sleeve. The relatively quiet commotion made sense, so the man beside me said nothing.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” He asked, leaning back and opening his chest as the camera zoomed just enough to make out the features on her face.

I didn’t answer. He didn’t care. He just wanted to see my reactions. I wasn’t going to give him any that I could control.

But my movements came to a halt as I heard the sound of footsteps on the recording. The footfall was heavy and purposeful. He had approached her in the video, and although exhausted, she still managed to sway her body away from him.

I knew it my heart she was one of the strongest women I’d ever known, but I never wanted her to have to prove that to me. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of breaking her. But he had.

It wasn’t her fault. I needed to tell her that.

“There is nothing you can show me that would make me stop loving her.” My words hung in the air, and he contemplated them at first before starting to laugh.

“Yeah, guess not. You seem like a cuckold type, anyway.”

It was hard not to let him get to me. I hadn’t slept more than the time spent drugged and unconscious, which was hardly restful. Even there I was plagued by nightmares of her dead body.

“You probably would have liked the way she screamed and moaned like a dirty whore for me.”

She hadn’t. I heard it. He knows that. He’s trying to get to me.

“I don’t care about what she did or what you show me.” The words were only slightly a lie. I cared because I wanted to see her, to know each of the places that he hurt so that I could love them twice as hard.

He was still laughing, entertained by the images of him and her together, him inspecting the wounds he had previously inflicted.

I watched as the video showed her spitting in his face as he came near her, and a small piece of pride and fear flared in me. I knew she had to fight, that was just who she was. But I knew what that meant for her.

Swallowing hard, I winced when I heard his hand make contact with the cheek I used to kiss to wake her up in the morning.

My heart burned with seething anger as I watched him hit her again, before she even had the chance to recover.

My eyes begged to close, but I left them open to watch as his open-handed slaps turned to fists, no doubt fracturing the delicate curves of her cheekbones and jaw.

She wasn’t fighting back anymore.

Her body was limp, and nearly fell from the chair. My chest heaved with struggled breaths and my heart, that beat so hard it practically begged to be freed from the prison of my ribs.

When his hand grabbed around her neck, I reflexively closed my eyes with a sharp inhale.

She was dead.

I already know what I’m going to see. He’s going to choke her until she can’t move anymore. He was going to kill her. He had already killed her. Me watching it isn’t going to change that.

The sounds of her gasping for breath through her forcibly narrowed throat forced me to open my eyes. I don’t know how she was even still conscious.

I wished that she weren’t. I wished that she wouldn’t have to feel the pain of him or watch his face as she withered way. I begged her to give in to the cold embrace of nothingness quickly.

Within her breaths, I swear I still hear her calling out for me.

“She _was_ a fighter.” He proclaimed. It was a mistake reminding me that he was here with me. With renewed urgency, I worked to unlock the handcuffs around my wrists.

How dare he talk about her in the past tense. How dare he speak of her at _all_.

Her body had fallen onto the floor, and he followed after it, that grip still on her throat until the time came when she wasn’t moving anymore.

It hurt me more than it should have, considering I knew it was coming. But it still did. Somehow, it hurt worse knowing I couldn’t have done anything to stop it.

I could see him talking, surely taunting me with more jests about her strife or my own. The words meant nothing to me. His explanation, his knowledge, his reason, it meant **_nothing_** to me.

I couldn’t hear anything over the blood rushing in my ears and the pounding ever-increasing metronome of my heart.

Maybe it wasn’t a metronome, but more a clock, ticking down to the doomsday timer that would end everything around me.

Approaching me, he lowered his face to mine. Staring evil in the face, I saw my own reflection in more ways than one in his eyes.

The pleasure he took in my suffering stoked the flames of my desire to torture him _worse_. To hurt him _worse_.

“Do you still not care about what I have to show, Dr. Reid?”

No words would possibly suffice to explain my thoughts at this moment. So I didn’t use words.

Without breaking the eye contact, I reared my head back before smashing directly into his with the most force I could possibly muster.

The way I felt his nose crunch against my skin was not enough. I needed to feel every bone of his body shattering into pieces under my hands.

Finally able to pick the lock and break my hands free, I picked up the chair I had been sitting in and smashed it against his arms he had raised defensively.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, he didn’t seem scared. He seemed downright pleased. It fueled the hatred flowing through my veins.

My breath was so hot it felt like fire. I couldn’t tell if my muscles were shaking from exhaustion, straining, or raw energy.

“Wow, Dr. Reid. You really _are_ a magician.”

The taunt was much too jovial for where we are. It did nothing but exponentially grow my rage. Because all I could see standing in front of me was the man who choked the life out of the woman I loved.

Still, the man was larger than me. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy fight, which is why I was not surprised when he managed to knock me on the ground.

However, I was a little interested in the fact he used the same kind of hold he had shown in the video. Did he think I hadn’t paid attention?

It was simple enough to anticipate what was going to happen. For me, anyway. I cannot say the same for him.

He attempted to clamp his hand over my mouth, but with a twist of my neck I was able to successfully take his fingers between my teeth. The way he cried out in pain fueled the hatred burning in my chest.

The taste of blood filling my mouth was more satisfying than I’d ever admit to anyone. His other hand released me, attempting to remove my hold on him.

But I didn’t stop. With crushing force, I ground my jaw against the soft flesh and bone of the fingers that had closed around her throat.

There is a myth that you can bite off a finger with the same force it takes to eat an uncooked carrot. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that easy. The act can be done - but only if your grip is just right.

The human jaw can only express up to around 1,175 newtons. It normally takes around 1,450 to fracture a bone. That doesn’t make it impossible, though. 

If the bite is made where bone or cartilage are close to the surface, the force required diminished greatly. This vulnerability was exposed by the shocking removal of Mike Tyson’s ear.

Considerable tearing forces are needed, and it can almost exclusively be performed by the premolar teeth.

So even if I cannot tear off all of his fingers and spit them back on his face, I could certainly make sure that they do not come out of this unscathed.

Color me surprised, though, when I did manage to feel his flesh tearing loose in my mouth. The hardness of even the smallest bones of his finger slipping between my teeth.

I had to laugh around the way it sounded and felt. Understanding I had devolved to the most feral instincts, I finally released him. It was not an act of mercy; I just wanted to see his face and the damage I had done.

When he removed his hand, I felt the pools of blood dripping down my chin, staining me the most attractive shade of red.

He wasn’t so snarky now that I had control of my body back, him unable to hold me with only one working hand. That was still too many. I could fix that.

Spitting the remaining blood in my mouth out on the floor, I scrambled to grab the hammer that had fallen off the tool shelf in the clamor.

Things had been going so poorly for me before, that I was almost surprised when I managed to get a hold of it. Turning my entire body on the ground, I swung at the man as he came at me from behind.

He dodged it, although also fell on the ground that was slippery with his blood. I crawled over on one broken hand, able to grab hold of his unharmed arm and twist it behind him.

Although he cried out in pain at the sudden overextension of his shoulder, I did not let that dissuade nor satisfy me.

Raising the hammer, I let this be the gavel that would never condemn him to prison.

He would not be leaving my hands, and he would certainly not be leaving with his.

Which is why I brought the hammer down with all the force of my animus, relishing in the way he squirmed under my knee.

Wanting to feel that rush again, I brought it down again. This time though, I turned the hammer so that the claw pierced through the delicate skin on the back of his hand.

The blood splattered against my sleeves and onto the floor. There was a hysterical, malicious chuckle echoing throughout the room that some part of me recognized as my own. But I could not care.

Exhausting myself momentarily, I almost let the man knock me onto the ground as he threw his body turn over. What danger would he pose to me now?

Not much, he apparently figured himself. I wonder which part of the sight before him best told him that he was going to die.

Was it the way I smeared his blood across my face to cover me like war paint? The crazed look in my eyes and the ominous smile that bore stained teeth? The way broken knuckles contorted into mangled fists?

Perhaps it was the way I dropped the hammer and let it clatter to the floor, stalking towards him as he lay half helpless on the floor.

If he begged for mercy, I did not hear him. All I heard were the sounds of her struggle and screams.

‘ _Spencer, please! Spencer, help me!_ ’

I hoped to god that she couldn’t see me now. Although part of me took pride in the idea. If I never got to tell her I loved her, I would make sure the man who stopped me rotted in hell in hacked pieces.

These were my only thoughts when I swung my bare feet at his chest, listening for the sound of cracked ribs. I kicked him once for each of his ribs, hoping that he would understand that I would not let him hold anything captive in the prison walls of his will again. Especially not myself.

I don’t care why he did it anymore. It never really mattered much to me. All that mattered to me was getting her back. Everything else was secondary. And now, my only goal had been destroyed.

I mounted the man’s chest, my knees against his elbows to hold down the useless stumps that remained of his hands. He looked absolutely pathetic; his face gnarled into a look of pure agony.

Still, the only face I saw was that of (y/n); free, smiling, and alive.

The look that he had taken from me.

Letting that thought overtake me, my hands gripped his throat like a vice. I was careful not to crush his windpipe too early. See, if I kill him quickly, then I would be doing myself a disservice.

I wanted to watch the life drain out of his eyes; I needed the last thing he saw in this world be my face taking the utmost pride in ending his miserable excuse of an existence.

Did you know that asphyxiation is the most painful form of death?

It’s not enough for me, though, to just feel him struggle to breathe under my grasp.

Lifting my hands, and with it his ragdolled head, I brought it down against the concrete. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as he struggled to scream.

Again, I smashed him against the concrete, watching the way his blood began to further stain the floor. I understand now, how Hotch must have felt when he finally got his hands on Foyet.

‘ _I love you, Spencer_.’

The words were the only thing that kept me tethered to this Earth. I don’t know how I’m going to survive without her or this rage. There has to be one.

‘ _It’s okay not to have everything figured out yet._ ’

I wanted to explain to him why exactly this was happening; to remind him that I promised him I would fucking kill him. But my throat was raw and drowned in the iron rich liquid now splattering below me.

‘ _Whenever you do, I’ll be here._ ’

It wouldn’t matter if I wanted to stop. I couldn’t. My arms were acting of their own accord, slamming his head repeatedly against the concrete floor as I heard the skull shatter and felt his breathing cease.

‘ _I love you._ ’

The sounds of wet impact were all I wanted to hear. They were the soundtrack to my own devolution, and in my mind it was the most _beautiful_ thing I’d ever heard.

Something in me must have noticed the sounds of police sirens in the distance. I know that I should have responded to the sounds of doors busting down, the rushing of an army of feet storming the halls.

My hands _did_ move from their position on his throat, now fixed on repeated blows to the man’s face. I didn’t want to see that fucking mouth anymore.

I didn’t want to just kill this man. I wanted to erase his entire fucking existence. Obliterate any hint of what he used to be, so that no one can mourn the death of him.

There would be nothing left.

That was the plan, anyway. Which is why when I heard the familiar commands of my teammates, instructing me to get off a very dead man, I refused to comply.

Because although a part of me heard them, the bloodlust and rage overtook that part with ease. That was the part of me that immediately swung at the first person to approach me.

My vision clouded with the shock and trauma of the gory scene, I felt my untamed, feral nature bristling, struggling against any person that tried to lay a hand on me.

There was only one thing that would bring me back to this Earth. But she wasn’t here.

“Spencer.”

I could hear her in my head again, but this time she was so much quieter.

“Spencer!” She called more insistently, her voice hoarse and desperate. The sound made my blood boil with guilt, fear, and grief.

But what was truly unsettling was the way the bodies around me froze, staring at the door behind me.

I knew that I had to turn around, but I was terrified. Had I truly gone insane? Was that her voice? Was she here, with me? Or had I concocted an image of her, coming to me before I am put down like a wild animal by the only people I had left in this world?

I couldn’t do it. What would she think, seeing me like this?

I had to do it. I had to know that she were here.

When I turned around, all the air abandoned my hungry lungs. Because I could see her. I saw her in a way that didn’t look at all like an image created by a dying brain.

She was not dressed like an angel. Her hair was matted with blood, her skin marred by welts and bruises. Although her torn shirt covered her relatively modestly, it showed the signs of fracture around her ribs.

For once, I am grateful he took it upon himself to mimic my previous torture. I had watched her die, but apparently he had shut off the camera early.

He had killed her and brought her back. Certainly, the intention was to kill her again, but now in front of me. He never had the chance. Unknowingly, I had saved her.

And now she was here, shuffling over to me with as much speed as she could. I wanted to go to her, but my legs were rooted in the pool of blood and death with my bare feet.

My arms fell to my side when she touched me, my body going limp as all the tension fell at once. 

“You came for me,” she mumbled with broken words into my stained clothes. 

Of _course_ I had. 

In a cruel twist of fate, I could not hold her. I couldn’t grab her and breathe her in, for my hands were broken and my face was covered with blood. Any way I touched her might cause her even more excruciating pain or further taint the purity of her light.

I couldn’t tell her that I was sorry, because my throat was now wrecked with loud, desperate sobs.

We fell to the ground as my knees buckled, hitting the drenched concrete. Her tears wet what little dry spaces remained on my chest while I prayed to a God I was starting to believe in.

She was free, she was smiling, and she was _alive_.

Before the medics came rushing in to pry us apart, separating us too soon for my liking, I called to her.

“(Y/n),” I croaked, looking down at her barely alive form holding on by a thread. I wouldn’t miss this chance, ever again.

“I love you.”

The words were stained with what lay around us like the sky before dawn. And although they were said through blood and tears, they were not defeated.

“ **I _love_ you**,” I repeated, watching the way her delirious spirit lit up in the darkness. But before the medics took her away, she brought a small, soft hand to my stained cheek.

“I know,” she whispered with a smile unencumbered by the weight of uncertainty or pain.

“I love you, too.”


End file.
